Ann Erdman is the Public Information Officer for the City of Pasadena, California.
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Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Setting City Budget Priorities

With massive budget cuts at the state level, municipalities all over California are wrestling with the impacts on local government services and programs.

From 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 8, the Pasadena City Council will try to sort out the realities of this issue during a special workshop.

They'll get input from City Manager Michael Beck and department directors, and the discussion will serve as the basis for setting City of Pasadena budget priorities for this fiscal year and into the future.

Public comment will take place at 8:30 a.m., so if you have some wisdom about this topic, that will be the opportunity for you to speak your peace. And, of course, you'll be welcome to stick around for all or part of the rest of the workshop.

The location is Room 211 at Pasadena Convention Center, 300 E. Green St.

Thanks, everybody! I still have a bit of the grunge, but I can safely say that I shall live.

Pasadena is in better shape fiscally than many California cities because of our long-standing practice of balanced budgets, sound investments and healthy reserves.

But we will still take a bigger hit than we anticipated.

The challenge will be to make cuts without affecting the current levels of programs and services, and without having to lay off any employees. After all, there can't be programs and services without employees to provide them and manage them.